early and drove down to 101 Dalmations playing in the backseat. Landon asked in the middle of the movie if Cruela DeVille kidnapped stuffed dalmations, too or just cartoon ones. He was holding on to Little Guy pretty tightly. :) We thought the boys would snooze on the way down, but neither one of them did. I thought we were up for ultrasounds and xrays this trip but turns out it was our CT day. Good thing I didn't let Land-o have any apple juice! Eek! He was a TROOPER though. It was his first CT as a big 5 year old, which means he had to drink 2 cups of contrast. Landon is a heavy drinker but even HE had had enough before he got to the bottom of the last cup of 'special apple juice.' They took us to the procedure center to have his I.V. put in because they were swamped in the Imaging Center. The procedure center is where you wanna be to get one of those put in. That's what those nurses do all day, and we've found they're much more skilled at it than Imaging Center staff in general. They sent the 'child life specialist' over to distract him....that's their job. They brought over an IPad and Landon played Angry Birds while they put the needle in. He didn't even flinch or whimper....watched the whole thing. When they put it in there was a little bit of a mess, and he said, 'Okay, let's get this under control' which the ladies got a big hoot out of. Then the nurse, said, 'okay, we're gonna send you back to the Imaging center' to which Landon replied, 'okay, can I take the Ipad?...haha! just kiddin!' I thought all the ladie
s were going to usher us out of there with a ticker tape parade they were so amused by him.
After the CT, we had an echo-cardiogram which we hadn't had since the week of his surgery. He was very cooperative again of course, and loved it in there because the Jetson's were on. After the Echo, the boys ate powdered sugar donuts, our
go to treat after no breakfast for Landon. And of course, here's Grant, always the eager brother to jump in on celebration treats. And hey, you can see the under bite I was talking about, too. Cheese it up, Grant. I see appointments in your future as well. Hope you're prepared to share your treats.
We had a weird appointment in the Hem-Onc lab with a nurse we had never seen before. We waited for nearly an hour....and this is how we spent the time....kicking Daddy's foot and running all over the 6' by 4' exam room....pretty much driving us to want a drink. The nurse finally came in, asked Land
on a bunch of questions, told us we were being released to the late effects program and that his blood work and urinalysis looked good from today, which we had to explain he hadn't had....uh....what the heck? She went back to the check the paperwork, and confirmed that yes in fact he hadn't peed in a cup today (like we didn't know?) and that he could do that at his next appointment in 6 months and they also didn't need blood work. Confusion: A) we've never gone to an appointment without having blood work and urinalysis B) we thought we had another year of 3 month appointments and C) we waited this long to see someone who asked LANDON all the medical questions instead of us? Hmmm.....this will require a phone call tomorrow to our REGULAR DOCTOR. Ugh. 2 weeks later after phone tag we found out we were right, we still need another year of 3 month appointments. I tel
l ya what....you'd like to think you can trust 'medical professionals' but you really can't. You've got to be an advocate for yourself (and your kids) cause nobody else is gonna do it. Disappointing...but true. The good thing is, I really don't care we have to go for another year of 3 month appointments. We're getting pretty good at all these scans, ultrasounds and x-rays, and I really feel pretty darned good when we walk out and they say everything looks clear and healthy. But they should be glad that I'm not trained on reading all those tests, because I'd be requesting to look at those, too. Hey, I guess you have to have a little bit of trust. Who'd have thought I'd have trust in Dr. Anim....the doctor who made me cry every time he left the room during the hospital stay....the doctor who I couldn't understand and the one who seemed to have the least amount of compassion and bed side manner. Two and a half years later, he's our man. Well 2nd to our big brave man, Land-o, of course, whom we couldn't be more proud or in awe of.
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